Love Drop: One Down!

The fledgling Love Drop team has completed the first drop!




Help us help them help others, one drop at a time!  Join Love Drop!

See my first post on Love Drop for more information.

Tiger Mother Chua Unleashes New Controversy on Parenting

This is a guest post by Raine Parker who regularly writes on the topics of online accounting degree.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: raine.parker6@gmail.com.

If you would like to submit a guest post to SimplyForties, please review the guidelines here.

Parenting styles have always been a touchy subject. For the past few years, "helicopter parenting", a style of childrearing in which parents are too involved with their children's lives, hyper-paranoid about them being placed in any sort of physical or emotional danger, real or perceived, made headlines and was the subject of national debate. A couple of weeks ago, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua's article in the Wall Street Journal, a crystallization of her personal parenting methods informed by her Chinese immigrant family and talked about at length in her new memoir, provoked fierce controversy throughout cyberspace and even the world.

The article, rather glibly titled "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior", explained the parenting philosophy Ms. Chua adopted in raising her two daughters. They were "never allowed to attend a sleepover, have a play date, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extra-curricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the number one student in any subject except gym or drama, play an instrument other than the violin or piano, and not play the violin or the piano."

Ms. Chua went on the argue that "Western parenting," one which places too great an emphasis on self-esteem, creates adults who are soft, entitled, unwilling to work hard, and subject to existential crises later in life. The extreme tone of the article sparked debate on forums everywhere. The original WSJ article received 5000 comments, and the New York Times ran an op-ed forum that focused on the article as well. Internet commentators who've chimed in have expressed outrage at what some see as abusive parenting tactics, while many others, especially from the immigrant community, commented that they experienced a similar "Chinese" upbringing. A Time Magazine article even noted that the WSJ article and memoir have been discussed in China as well, where a Chinese journalist was quoted as being "shocked" by the "crass generalizations".

In an NYT article published after the backlash, during which Chua even received death threats, Chua noted that "her narration" was meant to be "ironic and self-mocking." Despite attempts at damage control, Chua still stands by her overall approach to parenting, one in which parents demand high achievement from their children, no matter at what cost. Chua cites the fact that her children, who are now young adults, are happy and well-adjusted, as proof that her parenting was not too extreme.

What are your thoughts on the Chua controversy? Are "Western" parenting methods somehow misguided? Have we created a culture of laziness and self-absorption among younger generations? Or is Chua off her rocker?

By-line:

Getting older, may as well laugh!

This is a very funny invocation given by Mary Maxwell at a Caregivers' Appreciation Dinner.




Thanks to GypsyNester for bringing this to my attention.  Have a happy Saturday!

Link Love 1.20.11

Ruth Pennebaker from The Fabulous Geezersisters had a guest poster (her first!) last week who, in an excellent article, addressed being a "baby boomer".  So am I and so are my parents.  Helen Anders would like everyone to stop vilifying us for reaching retirement age.  Well put!

I didn't write about the shooting in Tucson.  Ronni Bennet from As Time Goes By did and my sentiments echo hers entirely.  Thanks Ronni, for your thoughts on Tucson, your words are always on point.

Here's another one of the HuffPo's little slide shows, this one's about little houses!  Some of them are decidedly tiny but some are not; the parameter was anything less than 1,500 sq ft.  These are all environmentally friendly homes, which makes them even better!

And one of my favorite housing trends - container houses.  This group of structures at The Daily Green; homes, offices, dormitories and child care facilities, are all made out of full-sized shipping containers.  These things have a ton of space and I frequently occupy my idle mind by contemplating how to turn one into a home.  Think they're ugly?  Take a look, some of these are fabulous!

Through The Daily Green's container house slideshow I discovered A Bowl of Electric Soup.  This guy is blogging from Dragonfly Mountain, Taiwan and styles himself Captain General of the Asiatic Monkey Pirate Fleet.   He has some beautiful photography and entertaining articles.  Worth checking out!

Lose weight, stay sane, get fit and feel great Yes, it's possible

This is a guest post by Neel who is an award winning professional freelance writer, specializing in creative writing and journalism, working in the US, Canada, Australia and Belgium.


If you would like to submit a guest post to SimplyForties, please review the guidelines here.

The quickest known way of going mad is trudging through the apparently endless “tricks” to weight loss. The various “tricks” vary between the bizarre, the unproven, the moralistic, and the insufferable, with diets which would worry a supermarket database. As a matter of fact, all you need is a swimming pool, a bit of your preferred type of exercise, and a new perspective on the problem to get you moving to your right weight range.

The weight loss concept and staying sane

If there was ever a case of a basic idea getting lost in itself, it’s weight loss. Let’s get this straight to start with- There is no One Size Fits All for weight loss. The ideal weight for one person isn’t the ideal weight for someone else. Some people feel fitter at different weights. Losing weight, to be done properly, needs to be done gradually, not all at once. You can actually do yourself serious damage by “starvation diets” and other types of nutritional insanity.

Just stay hydrated, eat fresh foods in rational amounts, and get down to work on your weight. Do not rely on supplements to do anything but be supplements. There are no “miracle diets”. That’s the surest way to stay sane while handling the issues. 

Getting fit

Doing a  “preferred” exercise is critical. Forcing yourself to regularly do something you really don’t want to do at all is a guarantee of trouble. You’re more likely to get worried than fit, if you don’t find a type of exercise that you actually like. You don’t need to become a fitness fanatic, you need to get fit.

The reward for getting fit is feeling fantastic. You need to experience it to understand what it really feels like. You’re not tired, you’re not breathless, you’re regularly starting to do things you thought you could barely do at all.

For weight loss the best basic exercises to start with are:

·      Swimming (Whatever else you do, swimming is the best all around exercise.)

·      Walking (Even a short walk exercises every muscle group in your body and burns calories.

·      Beginner Yoga (Always works for women, and does a lot to improve circulation and oxygenation.)

·      Beginner Tai Chi (aka Qigong, pronounced “Chee-goong”- You can do these exercises in bed, in fact invalids have been known to do them with good results. One of the exercises is just standing properly, and it’s surprisingly effective.)

Feeling great

Don’t be surprised if you “feel like a different person” rather suddenly. At a certain level of fitness, you will have behavioral changes which will lock in the new model you, and it’ll all be your idea. A lot of old style foods and habits will start to get on your nerves, or even actually repulsive. People rarely forgive anything that makes them feel bad, and things that made you overweight will be seen, rightly as The Enemy.

Get your swimming pool organized and cleaned (you might have to contact your local pool supplies shop) and start thinking about the future.

Love Drop - An Easy Way to Help

I recently stumbled across Love Drop, the brain child of some personal finance bloggers that I "know" through the personal finance blogging community.  Reminiscent of "The Big Give", they've got a great idea and I decided to join them in their efforts to help people.

Love Drop is a micro-giving network of people who unite as a community to help one person or family a month. By subscribing to the team for as low as $1 a month, they make it easy to change lives in a fun and tangible way. Each month Love Drop delivers a unique combination of unexpected financial gifts, personal encouragement and the support of local and online communities.

So basically, every month the Love Drop community comes together to raise as much support and awareness as we possibly can. It starts on the website - LoveDrop.us, gets spread across our entire network of blogs, continues through the forums where all our members are brainstorming, and finally lands on the front steps of our recipients. Literally.

At the end of every month, Nate and J$ show up in the town the people live in to deliver this pile of goodness. The money, the gifts, the services, everything! It's all on film, and it all ends with an amazing outpouring of love. And then it starts all over again the next month. The first drop is this month in Chicago.  Help us, and our flagship partner, Kona Grill, make this drop amazing!

Here's a little video about the first recipient -

Love Drop is a simple, easy, inexpensive way to help someone else in need.  It's wonderful thing and I hope you'll join us.  Don't have $1 a month to spare?  Check out the Love Drop website, there are lots of other ways to help.

Tiny Texas Houses

Long a fan, a few months ago I finally got a chance to stop by and tour the Tiny Texas Houses' facility.   Tiny Texas Houses' niche is that they use architectural salvage in their building.   Clients go by a huge warehouse where the owner has thousands of doors, windows, hardware and all sorts of other stuff, to choose their pieces.  The homes are then designed around those choices.  

The first stop on the tour was to wander through the five early prototypes, which are on display.  More useful as offices or studios than for full-time living, it was fun to peek inside.

Most of them were pretty rustic.

But they were all really cute.

They all featured lofted bedrooms.  Lofts don't count in the square footage of a home so a 400 sq ft home with a lofted bedroom may be roomier than you think.  Many tiny houses have lofted bedrooms.

These prototypes also featured some interesting, although to my mind not too practical, plays on materials.

After roaming around the early prototypes for awhile I went back in the office and hooked up with one of the guys who showed me two houses currently under construction.  The buildings are all constructed in the facility alongside Interstate 10 outside Luling, Texas, and then transported to their new locations.

One of the things I noticed right away when I was looking at the older models was that they seemed to lack any insulation.  They are lined up alongside the highway and the road noise was pronounced, even with the door shut.  No insulation and old double-hung windows wouldn't make for very comfortable living.  The new homes under construction presented a very different picture.

This home, which is 33' long and about 16' wide is fully insulated. (Note: their website says 12' x 28' is as big as they go so I may have written the dimensions of this house down wrong.)

Unfortunately I wasn't able to see a newer home with the custom cabinetry and modern amenities that are available.  The Tiny Texas Houses are all custom designed and built so pricing isn't standard.  Their website will tell you that so far the houses have ranged from $38,000 to over $90,000.  I would urge you to go to their website and check out their photo gallery.  You'll be surprised at how livable many of these homes are.

While I was there the guy who was showing me around told me that the owner, who was away, shares my dream of a tiny house community.  Evidently he's also thinking about older single women as his target resident.  Much as I love these homes, I don't think lofted bedrooms are the way to go for this demographic.  Even with stairs, as opposed to ladders, going up and down in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom wouldn't be ideal; in fact I think it could be downright dangerous!  I've seen tiny houses with both a ground level bedroom and a lofted one; the perfect resolution.

From what I was able to gather, in his community he also envisions only a shared kitchen facility with no individual kitchens in the units themselves.  If his plans bear fruit I hope he will modify this idea.  I believe that even if we choose to take advantage of the positive aspects of communal living, we also want the ability to live independently in the same setting.  So kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and some sort of sitting room are needed in each house.

The porches, which can run the length of the house front and back and are folded up for transport, help a lot with the feeling of space.  Tiny Texas  Houses will build your house however you want it, cost and its ability to be transported, being just about the only limiting factors.

I love these little houses.  Their creator is on a mission to preserve what we have, reduce our footprint and simplify our lives with style and grace and I applaud his efforts.  If you're ever east of San Antonio, around Luling, going down IH-10, you'll see his little prototypes lined up along the south side of the highway.  Stop by and take a look, I know you'll be charmed by what you see.

Online Personal Trainers - checking in

A few weeks ago I wrote about an experiment that a friend and I were engaging in.  We each signed up for different online trainer programs.  The programs were very similar, each providing meal and exercise plans.  We were going to try them out and report in with our results.  Almost immediately, and separately from each other, we both gave up.  In my case the food didn't suit me and somehow the whole setup didn't work.  Through no fault of his own the trainer hit a wrong note with me early on and we never got back on a good footing and I canceled my subscription.

Over the Christmas holidays I spent a few days with my younger brother and his wife.  The company where my brother works provides its employees with a subscription to a meal plan service called Nutrio.  They've been following the program and while I was there I ate the meals too.  They were delicious!  My brother and his wife have been losing about a pound a week since they started the plan.

I was so enthusiastic that when I got home I did a little checking and discovered that I could sign up with Nutrio as an individual for three months for $29.95.  I signed up and have been religiously following the plan since then.  I decided to weigh-in weekly and, after a week of good food and no hunger I'd lost three pounds!  Although I definitely advocate exercise as part of any weight loss program, I didn't do any  during this period and still lost the weight.

The plan consists of three meals and three snacks a day.  If you don't like a meal you can easily make a substitution for one that appeals to you.  All the meals have simple recipes, which are sized for single servings, making it easy to increase them to whatever number of servings you need.  The plan also provides you with a grocery list which is easy to customize.

When you set up your account you are given the opportunity to exclude various proteins that you would prefer not to have in your menus.  You are also asked to choose between a weight loss/maintenance, vegetarian, diabetic, healthy heart or vegetarian including fish plan.  You can change your preferences at any time and your meal plan will be automatically adjusted.  The weight loss plan is based on 1300 calories a day.

There is also an exercise plan and you are asked several questions that help tailor it to your needs.  There is no personal contact from anyone, which evidently appeals to me more than the daily, peppy emails from the online trainer with my previous program.  On the other hand, if you have a question they are happy to respond.

I think the main benefit with the plan is that it resets our idea of what a portion size  really is.  We all know that portion sizes have gotten completely out of control in the past few years.  When I got home from my first big grocery shopping trip I took the time to properly portion out all the proteins before putting them in the freezer.  Those 4 ounce portions didn't seem like much but in every case, it was plenty of food.  About the time you start getting hungry it's time for another meal or a snack.

As you can tell, I'm pretty enthusiastic about the Nutrio plan.  So far my brother has lost fourteen pounds on the plan and my sister-in-law has lost eight.  I don't expect to maintain a three pound-a-week loss and do plan to start exercising so we'll see where I end up.  So far so good!

55th Annual Houston Boat Show - RV's

I'm blogging live from the Houston Boat Show. Although I was disappointed with the lack of cabin cruisers to poke about on, the RV section more than met my expectations.

I love these tiny houses on wheels and, although I have no interest in driving around in or with an RV, there are several models I could see myself living in. At around $30,000, many of them would make an inexpensive full-time home. Even the $75,000 model is cheaper than most homes and it was down right luxurious!

Check out this neat swing-out outdoor kitchen, which includes a stovetop, microwave, sink, lights and cabinetry -



The models with this feature also have fully equipped indoor kitchens. Right next to this kitchen was a bathroom that could be accessed from outside or inside the unit. That's pretty handy.

Even the most basic models came with a little bracket to mount a grill -




This $75,000 model has an electric fireplace tucked in just below a big flat screen TV -



Most of the bathrooms have the sink outside to save space. This model managed to squeeze in a small tub -


Ample seating and relaxing areas were a goal of all the RV's




Even the tiny ones -



featured a full kitchen with stovetop, fridge and microwave



and lots of seating



This tiny unit's entire bathroom became a shower. This cute little camper was the only one at the show that I couldn't see myself living in but I'd love to go camping in it!

I had a lot of fun at the boat show and am glad I came. Mobile blogging is a success and, although typing on my iPhone isn't ideal, I expect to do more of it!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

55th Annual Houston Boat Show

In an exercise in mobile blogging , I'm writing from the boat show. Thinking more about tiny houses than boats, I'm here looking for ideas on space utilization. They just opened for the day so it's not crowded yet. There are lots of amazing boats but more of the fishing variety as opposed to the cabin cruisers that I'm looking for.

I didn't think there would be anything here to actually tempt me but these are pretty sweet -



There are lots of kayaks. Some are pretty fancy. All decked out with fishing pole holders, GPS units, coolers and all sorts of neat equipment!



This model, though presumably not as equipped, is about $800.



I put a deposit down on sailing lessons with the Bay Area Sailing School. Learning to sail is one of my goals for the year and I'm excited to have taken a step towards realizing it. They offered a big discount for signing up at the show so I went for it!

Though I didn't see what I'd hoped to in the boat section, I'm heading over to the RV's next. Stay with me!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Blogging Experiment: The Houston Boat Show

Today's post is going to be an experiment.  I'm heading to the Houston Boat Show looking for tiny house ideas.  No one knows how to utilize space better than boat and RV builders!  I have a new blogging app on my iPhone and my plan is to blog live from the show.  Stay tuned and wish me luck!

Link Love 1.13.11

Some interesting reads around the web this past week -

Just stumbled across this gal who is cooking her way through the alphabet.  Check out this article, which was written to explain what she's doing, and then browse around.  She's up to "G".  Fascinating!

My son has launched a new blog called Movie Coda with a tagline of "All the thoughts that come up after the movie".  He's talking about movies, directors, producers; pretty much anything and everything about the film industry.  He's also reviewing Criterion movies and he's lined up a guest poster to talk about movie sound tracks.  I hope you'll take a look and encourage him in this new endeavor!

You know I love a tiny house.  I just stumbled across Rich's Portable Cabins the other day and I love what he's doing.  Like the guy who built my friend's little house, he's not doing a lot on the delivery and set up end but he's building some sweet little houses!  He's planning a subdivision of tiny houses in Oregon if he can get the zoning squared away.  Sign me up!

South Padre Island has become the 2nd city in Texas to ban plastic bags.  Now let's go for statewide!

Here's a neat article from Oprah's website about the cooking New Year's resolutions of 17 celebrity chefs.  An interesting read.

Finally, check out this cute pattern for a knitted tie at K1Frog2.  I'd wear it!

Renting or Buying a Home: Which Is Right for You?

This is a guest post by Gunter Jameson who writes about several topics including travel, minimalism and University of Phoenix Campuses.


If you would like to submit a guest post to SimplyForties, please review the guidelines here.

Ever since the end of WWII, owning your own home has been part of the American Dream. And most people feel that buying a home is a good, long-term investment over renting—where you build no equity. However there are many advocates for renting, pointing out that if you can rent for less than what you would pay on a mortgage and invest the balance, you actually come out ahead. For those of you who are debating buying a new home, take a look at some of the advantages of renting vs. buying and make the decision that is best for you.

Renting Advantages

One of the great things about renting is that you aren’t tied to any one place. When your lease is up, you can move or look for better deals elsewhere. There are also much smaller upfront costs as opposed to buying a home, and renter’s insurance is (in many cases) almost 10 times cheaper than home insurance. And, if you don’t like taking chances, renting is a sure way to never lose money on a long-term real estate investment. In addition, most of your maintenance costs are covered by your landlord so you never have to pay for a plumber or replace a major appliance—potentially saving you lots of money.

Renting Disadvantages

When you rent, you never build equity. No matter how much you pay each month, you’ll never own your apartment and stop paying rent altogether. Likewise, you’ll also never be able to take advantage of the tax breaks that come from owning a home. Further, you have little to no say in how improvements are made to your apartment. That means you’ll never be able to add an addition, paint your living room, remodel your bathroom, or build a loft in your child’s bedroom.

Buying Advantages

Buying a home is an investment for your future. The longer you pay on a mortgage, the less you’ll pay in interest, paying down your principle investment and building equity for later when you’ll sell your home. Eventually, you’ll be able to pay off your home and not have a monthly home mortgage payment. You are eligible for a number of tax breaks and advantages, and you have the ability to do whatever you want to your property. Do you want to hang a tire swing in your living room? Go right ahead—it’s your home.

Buying Disadvantages

Along with owning your own home comes a number of costs like property tax, homeowner’s insurance, and maintenance fees. If your hot water heater breaks, there’s no one to step in and cover your costs—you pay for it 100%. In the long term, your house will probably rise in value, or at least keep up with inflation, but that is not guaranteed. And as the latest economic meltdown has shown us, markets fluctuate, and you could find yourself paying a mortgage on a house that is worth half its value when you bought it. And if you ever find yourself looking for a job or having to move for any reason, you’ll have to go through the process of selling your house before you can leave.

Many of the pro-renting mindset say that if you take the money you save in mortgage payments, maintenance, and taxes and invest it for the long-term, you’ll end up with more money in the end, but that’s only if you can find a consistently good renting situation, and if you are financially savvy enough to actually run those numbers and follow through with them—which most renters are not. On the other hand, you just have to look at the financial state of those people who have lost their homes in the recent economic slowdown to see that buying a home is never a sure investment either.

In the end, you can run the numbers yourself and see if renting or buying is to your advantage (like using this rent vs. mortgage calculator). I think you’ll find that most people have different needs at different points in their lives and buying or renting makes more or less sense depending on your specific circumstances. But it is up to you to run the numbers and figure out where you stand at this point in your life.

Vanity Sizing

Vanity sizing is that annoying trend towards making clothes bigger while keeping the size number the same.  Size inflation is another name for it.  I remember first hearing about vanity sizing 35 years ago when I was in high school and taking a modeling class.  We were told that the more expensive the store the smaller the size.  The idea is sheer manipulative marketing.  At Wal-Mart you might wear a size 10 but at Saks you would wear a size 6 so you would decide that the cheap clothes at Wal-Mart didn't reflect your true size and you'd shop at Saks (or Dillards or Macy's or wherever) instead because clearly they were the only ones who knew the true you.

The majority of the clothes in my closet come from either Talbots or Ann Taylor, but mostly from Talbots. I started shopping there a couple of years ago and found that I like the smaller store, which enables me to see everything they have in a reasonable amount of time.  Their style esthetic seems to align pretty closely with mine and, frankly, I like that there's someone to help bring me different choices when I'm in the dressing room.

These days I'm a size 8.  I'm not too happy about it but there it is and I accept it.  Except at Ann Taylor, where I'm a size 6.  Far from making me think that Ann Taylor is the only store that really knows my true size and immediately swearing to wear nothing else, it annoys me.  I cruise through the store picking up every size 8 item that is even remotely interesting to me, haul it all back to the dressing room, get out of my clothes and start trying on.  Only then do I remember that in Ann Taylor I wear a size 6.  If my helper is on her toes and comes back to check on me pretty quickly, I assign her the task of swapping everything for the smaller size.  If she doesn't come by pretty quickly (or I'm at an outlet store where you don't get that service), I tend to get so annoyed at the thought of re-dressing and trading all those clothes in for the smaller size that I usually get dressed and walk out.

Chico's took a completely different approach to this issue by inventing their own sizing.  Chico's sizes run from 00 to 4.  I feel like I need a decoder ring when I go in there.  The fact that I'm a size 1 in Chico's, instead of a size 8, doesn't make me feel more kindly towards Chico's, it just irritates me because I can never remember how the sizes work.  

I have spent most of my life at the other end of the spectrum and, although it garners little sympathy, that's no cake walk either.  Five or six years ago, the last time I was at my fighting weight I discovered that I was a linguistically ridiculous size 0, when I used to always be a 2 or, more often, a 4 at that weight.  Being a size 0 may seem like something to which to aspire but actually it's a pain.  It's very difficult to find clothes that fit and are styled for an adult woman.  Sometimes even the 0's were too big, not because I was smaller but because the sizes were bigger, and then it was impossible.  I spent huge amounts of time going from store to store, (something I hate) and seldom finding anything.  

A size is merely a number designed to help give us some idea which item of clothing might reasonably be expected to fit us.  It's not a reflection of anything else.   I admit that realizing I was a size 8 was a little difficult for me but I am the size I am and changing the size printed on the label of my clothes doesn't change that reality.  Are we really so shallow that telling us we're a different size in a particular store makes us think we are a different size?  I hope not. 

Where do you stand on vanity sizing?  Love it or hate it?  And what about Chico's?  I know some of my readers are big Chico's fans.  Do you like their sizing strategy?